Tag Archive for: model

Sometimes 15 minutes is enough for a commercial photo shoot

/in /by

Planning is everything in a photo shoot

Sometimes it doesn’t go as planned. Our planning for this commercial photo shoot was good, but it ended in only 15 minutes shooting.
Recently we did a photoshoot for the new Sparks sunglasses collection.
The idea was to shoot the series in Amsterdam, but due to the weather, we decided at the last minute to change the location to Emmeloord so we would have the studio as a backup. and once again we found out that planning a for commercial photoshoot can go differently than you thought.

Rescheduling was impossible because the tickets were already bought from the UK to the Netherlands and back. So we decided to go for it.

Oops… planning for a shoot can go wrong

When the client arrived we started by planning the whole shoot, and to our horror, we found out they had to be back in Amsterdam in….. 2 hours.
This meant we had to drive to the location (Urk), do the photo shoot, and drive the client back to Lelystad, and from there to Amsterdam. In the car to Urk I, actually for the first time, realized I had exactly 15 minutes to do the whole shoot.

Seeing our client was here all the way from the UK I wanted to give them more than they asked for, but 15 minutes… would be a new record 😀

Flash and natural light, ETTL rocks

I’m not a big fan of ETTL but luckily our Geekoto strobes support both HSS and ETTL. So I decided to shoot almost everything in 3 fold. One time natural light, immediately after that with strobes as a fill-in light, and then the final shot with a more day-to-night look.

When you set this up correctly it’s possible to shoot 3 different looks in one setup. Just move your body a little bit or change positions. And it almost looks like you did a lot, while in essence, it was a short session.

For the location, I chose the harbor of Urk. Because we only had 15 minutes I knew that from a low angle, I could get a nice sky. But with just changing my own position I can shoot Urk in the background or all the boats in the harbor. And when walking back the killer-whale and some other nice locations where you can just stand and shoot.

Annewiek was functioning as my VAL *(Voice Activated Lightstand) and held the GT200 with the S26 softbox under different angles during the shoot, again to maximize the amount of different “looks”.

In this case, I shot the whole series with ETTL and HSS. This meant I could work very fast on location. But the downside is that all photos needed slight adjustments in Lightroom. Not a big deal but personally I’m a lightmeter guy 😀

Anyway, enough talk. Although our planning for this commercial photo shoot was different, we got great results, and the client is satisfied.

Here are some images from the session. It’s not everything I shot, but it is a nice overview.

Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot

 

Sparks Sunglasses Website 

See the video of the workshop outside, where we also used the Geekoto.

check this post of the shoot with Nadine with Sparks Sunglasses 

What happens when you change it to Black and White?

/in , /by

What happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

The choice between black and white, or color can be tricky.
For me personally I sometimes shoot something with the intent to make it black and white. But then when I see the results I often keep it in color, because I just love the way it looks. And what happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

Sometimes you might shoot something that is very colorful and you don’t even think about black and white. That’s why I post this today.  Luckily with digital, we can of course do both 😀

The horror clown is back!

Well she was here just 2 days ago, so she was not really gone 😀
But as you could have seen in the previous blog post about the horror clown, the color was pretty colorful. So this is the kind of set where you might not immediately think about a black-and-white conversion, but…. think about this.

Black and white doesn’t just mean we take out the color.

In fact, you can still manipulate the colors via the H(S)L adjustments in Lightroom. A bit like in the old days photographers did with filters. We can now manipulate images to our hearts’ content in our RAW convertor.

The idea of black and white in this setting is not to take out color but to inject a lot of mood and make the images more creepy. And that’s the cool thing about black and white. I sometimes make the joke

“if you mess up a shot, add a lot of contrast and noise, make it black and white, and voila instant art”

It sounds weird, but it’s really true.
If we look at a color image that is just slightly out of focus or has a shadow that’s not 100% correct in color we immediately see this as “bad”. But make it black and white and we see it as mood, or we don’t even notice it. Now that doesn’t mean that all my images that are black and white are “bad” images of course. But some street photography images have been “saved” that way in the past 😀

But let’s first take a look at the original blog post about the horror clown.
Now that you have seen the color versions, let’s go to black and white.

change your picture into black and white change your photo to black and white change your image into black and white

As you can see the images get a totally different vibe and look.
For me even more creepy than the color versions.

Learning all about lighting in our workshops

For me teaching the workshops is not all about lighting.
Personally, I think there is a lot more than just lighting or a cool/fitting backdrop.
A good photo is a cooperation between the model and the photographer. So coaching and making a model feel at ease is vital. But after that, the real creativity comes into play, and during the workshops, I try to focus at least 80% on creativity.

This can be with lighting, but also with the storytelling part.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, working in “super creativity” model can enhance your skills way above the level you would achieve if you only shoot what you are hired for. Plus if you can shoot images that your client is not used from you it could very well be that he/she asks for something a bit more creative.

Visit www.frankdoorhof.com and www.photography-workshops.eu for the workshops in Dutch and English.

Using two or three umbrellas for a perfect white background a video tutorial

/in , /by

The white background

Is often one of those backgrounds we all use once in a while, and some have even build a complete career around it.
When I started out with my learning process I was lucky enough to find out about Dean Collins so I started using a lightmeter almost immediately which makes setting up a white background (and everything else) a lot easier and faster. But still I ran into a lot of problems.

Over the years I’ve tried different ways to shoot this setup.
At one point I was using two strobes on the background, two strip lights as accents and one main light.
The problem always was the floor. The accent lights would give double shadows, this by the way was solved by angling the strip lights slightly up and using grids, but that didn’t solve my other problem, the floor itself.

The miracle of plexiglas

When using the standard setup the main issue was always the floor.
The background would be nice and white, the model was perfectly lit, the accents were nice, but the floor….
You can do it in Photoshop but then you have to edit every single shot, plus it looks the model is floating, so I added some shadows.. and realised it must be possible to do it faster and easier.

Enter, Plexiglas.
By placing transparant plexiglas on the floor you can redirect the light and create a perfect white background which seamlessly blends in with the background, it’s a simple trick of reflections. And the cool thing… you can also use transparant plexiglas on other colors, it’s always giving an awesome reflection.

I’ve talked about this extensively in this blogpost, but today I also show you in the video how I use three and even two umbrellas to create the perfect white background for a full body model including accents… yeah it’s really possible and super easy (and cheap).

Gear used :
3x Geekoto GT400
1x Rogue travel kit with the black umbrella and sleeve (main light) and the white umbrella.
1x Rogue white umbrella.

The nice thing about the Rogue umbrellas is that they are made of Fibreglass which makes them very durable and super easy/light to setup.

In this video I show you how the setup works.

 

 

Outside fashion shot for sunglasses with extreme styling and flash Part V : let’s talk about something grungy

/in , /by

The final setup

Today in the blog the final setup from the workshop “on location in Emmeloord”
In this workshop we use locations close to our studio, that at first sight might look uninteresting, but by using light/poses/angles and of course styling are still suitable to create awesome images.

If you didn’t already I highly recommend reading the previous blogposts.
Let’s talk about the flash
Let’s talk about gear
Let’s talk about storytelling 
Let’s talk about backgrounds and angles

For the final setup we are still using the same lighting setup with the same Geekoto GT200 with a large reflector.
This is what we sometimes call our “outside studio” or in other words a part of our studio (away from the public eye) where we just leave everything (within reason), so it looks very “grungy”/”urbex” this part is based around an old trailer with some bushes and is great as a location, especially when shooting from a low angle the fence in the background and the angle it creates can be very nice.

In this setup I’m also using HSS for the last images.
During the workshop I did not use HSS because when working during a workshop it’s better to shoot with a so called “dumb” trigger, this means I can setup the strobe with my Geekoto Commander  and just let the attendees shoot via their own trigger. HSS and ETTL only work correctly with a commander that fits your system. With Canon, Nikon and Sony we have special commanders, but this workshop we also shot with a Leica so the choice was made to let HSS rest till the end.

The main advantage of shooting HSS is that you can break the 1/125th second limitation of normal cameras/strobes.
By the way, Sony just released the first camera with a global shutter that will make it possible to shoot on much faster shutter speeds with strobes not using HSS. This is a HUGE deal for flash photography on location and will change the way you can work forever. I hope to be able to test one of them in the near future.

With HSS you can break this rule which means you can shoot day2night but still have a very shallow depth of field.
Now don’t just set your camera to 1/8000 and F16 ISO100 because you will be disappointed.
HSS is awesome but it takes a HUGE hit on your output. Where with a large reflector shooting F22 on ISO50 is no problem at all with HSS you will end up with a pitch black image not even seeing the strobe.

 

HSS Technique

Also with HSS I’m using the same technique.
I set the camera to manual and use the EVF (or lightmeter) to determine the look I like. But I do take into account that I leave the aperture below F4 and I try to keep the shutterspeed sensible, and only at the speed I need. When you are used to setting up for HSS you will find that it really adds a lot more different looks to your arsenal, and… that’s always a good thing 🙂

So let’s take a look at the final results… can you spot the images I was shooting with HSS?

Model/Styling : Nadine
Sunglasses : Sparks

www.fotografie-workshops.nl for the Dutch workshops
www.frankdoorhof.com/shop for my gear